The 2014 Solo PR Summit was an experience that I will forever cherish. It was billed as a one-of-a-kind event and it delivered. I have had the pleasure of working with Kellye Crane for about a year and she never ceases to amaze me with her smarts, passion and innovation.

2014 Solo PR Summit

The Solo PR Summit was truly designed for independent practitioners. Yet, what made it over the top special was the attendees. I felt like I was truly among my tribe. Everyone from the speakers to attendees was welcoming and gracious. Knowledge and tips were freely shared, and no question was too small to be answered.

The top notch speakers over-delivered on their content but they were equally engaged participants. I cannot think of another event where the speakers remain throughout the conference actively listening and participating in all the sessions. Below are a few of my takeaways from this year’s summit:

Face time is valuable. I am a big believer in continuous learning but the Summit reinforced the value of in-person events. Nothing replaces the back and forth of face-to-face communication. You are using all of your senses and I believe it facilitates internalizing what you are learning. This summit had the added bonus of lots of opportunities to break bread, raise a glass or share a moment with really smart people.

Professional development is a two-way street. As we plan our professional development for the year it is often with a view of “what’s in it for me?” We want to invest our time and resources in ways that will offer the highest return. However, the summit reminded me that professional development is give and take. I learned but I also had the opportunity to share with others. As we share our own learning is reinforced.

Iron sharpens iron. There was tremendous value in being with people who have an independent practice or small business. I was enriched in a much different way than colleagues who work in corporate settings. We operate from a similar foundation and uniquely understood the challenges of triumphs of being solo professionals. I was pushed out of my comfort zone by what others were doing (hey they’re solo and they’re doing it, so I can too!) as well as encouraged by learning that some of my practices were on target (woo hoo I’m doing it right!).

We all need a shot of truth. I am done making excuses. I have pleaded cobbler’s kids’ syndrome so often because I did not put myself and business on my own agenda. Thanks to Shelly Kramer I now think “shame on the cobbler for neglecting his own when they should have been the best-heeled children of all!” Our own “house” should reflect what we offer to others. It is no longer humorous to plead “too busy with client work” as an excuse for not actively doing what I preach to others.

Lauren Vargas – Solo PR Summit

Event organizers deserve combat pay. I had a seat behind the curtain and had the chance to see the myriad of details of pulling off a 2-day conference. I have been involved in facets of event planning but it pales in comparison to what Kellye Crane had to do to make the 2014 Solo PR Summit a reality. I have a new respect for people who are so passionate about enriching others that they tackle the task of organizing an event. There are so many details to be tended to and even with careful planning there are a multitude of things that can and do go wrong.

I highly recommend getting outside of your silo and investing in professional development. Even when you think you know it all, you have the opportunity to learn more. I further encourage you to add at least one in-person learning opportunity each year. Go with a sponge mindset ready to absorb all that you can. The investment you make will pay off in your business many times over.

How about you. what’s on your professional development calendar this year? What do you most value about in-person events?

I received a phone call from a service that I have been using for nearly a decade. The call came in the middle of an early afternoon run. I had decided to take a lunch time run to clear my head and recharge. Seeing the service pop up on my caller ID, I answered thinking that there was a problem. I picked up and the cheery customer service representative informed me that it was a customer check-up call.

Customer service phone call

She never took a breath before launching into a series of increasingly annoying questions. I kept running while providing short answers. I was annoyed but curious where this was headed. It quickly became apparent that this was far from a “check-up” call it was an attempt to sell me services I had no desire to buy.

For almost 10 years I have been happy with the service and often recommended it to others. In less than 10 minutes, my largely favorable view of the company had been tainted. It is not the attempt to upsell me that rankled but the poor way in which it was handled.

I am not outing the company as I have no desire to damage their reputation. I’d rather use this as an opportunity to learn and assess our own behaviors with customers. So listed below are the three key mistakes this company made and what we can learn from it.

Mistake #1: Treating customers like strangers. The rep had access to my account information. A quick look at my history would have revealed the number of years I have been a customer and the products I am currently using. Instead, the rep treated me like a brand new customer asking me if I knew about different features that are basic to the service. The entire conversation could have gone differently if she had immediately acknowledged me as a long term customer and led with what she knew about me and my business. Instead it felt like meeting an old friend who shakes your hand and says, “Where do I know you from?”

Mistake #2: The conversation was a lie. The representative said it was a customer check-up call but she never asked about my current service. She simply launched into a series of scripted questions about features. Be honest about why you’re calling and set the expectation up front. If you’re calling to tell me about services I may not be using, say that.

Mistake #3: Focus on quota, not customer. Clearly the company has an internal initiative to improve revenues and shift customers into a higher priced featured product. I felt like little more than a “mark” rather than a valued customer. It would have been nice to hear “thanks for being our customer for so long,” or some acknowledgement of our history. It would have been even nicer to have a real conversation that was relevant to me and my business. Rather than scripted questions, ask real questions about my business and goals and offer solutions that make sense.

Proactive calls to customers are a wonderful way to nurture relationships, and yes even grow your business. However, it is important to ensure that in every interaction you put the customer first. Today, even small companies have access to huge amounts of data about their customers. Use that data to serve up messages that are relevant to your customer base.

In this particular case, no service would have been a better option. I was perfectly happy before the awkward fake customer check up call. The call put the company on my radar in a different way. It has made me hyper aware of their marketing messages on other platforms, and I am not sure I like the new direction. A once loyal customer is now eyeing other options.

I’d love to hear from you. Have you ever been on the receiving end of proactive service that went bad? How do you prevent this in your own business?

Update: Over the past several days I’ve been working closely with Sucuri to work through issues caused by the attack. Blog posts were disappearing, characters were appearing and I even had my own IP blacklisted. As a result of fixing these issues and sleuthing out any backdoor hacks you may have seen this post appear and reappear several times. I am so sorry and hope that this is all behind us.

The phone rings and somehow you know that the news is going to rip the fabric of an otherwise normal day. That is how I felt when my senior copywriter, Michele hit my cell over the weekend. Not that a call from her signals bad news but somehow my mind knew before my ears heard the news. My site had been hacked. In fact, I later discovered two of my sites had been hacked.

I felt violated, as though someone had ransacked my home and spray painted a note on the front door to mock me. Worse, a much needed weekend of rest had turned into a nightmare journey of fighting cybercrime.

I was not going to write this post, fearing that even using the H word would invite a return visit. But running scared is not my M.O. and this is an opportunity to help others avoid being burned by slimy human beings who break things for kicks.

Though I wanted to curl up in a corner and cry. I gave myself a 1 minute cry break, bucked up and did the following:

Changed all of my passwords. I have always adhered to strong passwords but bumped it up a notch to super strong.

Getting hacked not only causes emotional distress but can damage your business. Malware can cause search engines to blacklist your site. Your site visitors can be infected. All of this can damage your reputation and bottom line. As a business and communications professional I urge businesses to have a plan and a backup plan. Your website is an asset and you should absolutely be proactive by taking every measure to secure it and have a good plan in place should something go wrong.

There were things I was doing well and others that I allowed to slip. Listed below are the lessons I learned that you can apply to your own business.

Do not rely on one security measure. Your webhost may be great but if you use a CMS, themes, scripts or plugins you are still vulnerable to attacks.

Just like the software on your computer, make sure that you are always running the latest version of your CMS, theme and plugins. Failure to upgrade may expose you to security vulnerabilities.

Remove unused items. Delete any unused themes or plugins. Again, if you’re not using them you’re not updating them.

Backup on a regular basis. Even if your entire site were taken down, a backup will ensure that you can restore your site quickly.

Be judicious about what you install. Check out reputable sources for information on themes and plug-ins. Do research to see if there have been problems.

Use very strong passwords. Follow the advice of security pros and include a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. Do not use personal information such as birthdays, phone numbers and addresses.

As an additional resource I created a list of articles on keeping your site secure. Please feel free to add to it with tips and references of your own.

Getting hacked sucks, but like every crisis it can take you down or help you to fortify your defenses for the future. These attacks are not going away so it is important that we become educated about the resources that can help us be proactive.

Have you ever been hacked? Commiserate in the comments and share your tips for getting through it.

I am beginning to loathe the term “content.” I have no memories of being dropped on my head as a baby while someone shouted “Content!” so I am chalking my disdain up to an occupational hazard. I do in fact spend an inordinate amount of time in the inner echelons of industries that provide “content.” It could be that I bump into the word so often that familiarity has bred contempt. Or maybe it is something more.

I’m not a content hater. We have a history – we go way back to the days of coloring books where I added content to my pretty pictures. And yes, I also use the word on this very site to describe a subset of my offerings. But content is not quite cutting it for me.

Too many people focus on the buzzword and lose sight that content is all about communicating with other people. Content does not adequately describe the enormous opportunity we have to talk, connect, activate, inspire and crowd source in words, pictures and videos.

The current term makes it all seem so mechanical and devoid of passion and interaction. We have systems and tools to help us “feed the content machine.” We can forget that the content beast is actually a body of hearts and minds that have the capacity to think, feel and most importantly talk back.

Don’t get me wrong. Having a strategy is important, as is measurement. However let’s infuse our purposeful, intentional conversations with a bit of humanity.

Have you ever had a great teacher that made you excited about learning the subject matter? Or have you ever listened to a speaker that had you leaning forward in your seat? You may have been entertained but more importantly you were engaged. Imagine if we approached content with the same passion for imparting ideas, teaching and inspiring discussion? And yes, even entertain – make them laugh, cry or feel something deeply. What if the intent was to get people to lean forward in interest?

In other words what if we focused on people with the same fervor we seek thought leadership, visibility and optimization? How much more successful would we be if went all in allowing our passion for what we do to shine through?

You want to be a real thought leader or content rock star? Give a darn about what you do and who you serve! Get passionate about teaching, inspiring, and pulling back the curtain to bring people into your world. Let how well you are reaching people be the measurement that drives what you do.

I realize that to some this will sound like hippie peace and love talk but make no mistake I am in business to win for me and my clients. But we can’t win if we’re chasing numbers alone. All of us in some way are in the people business. People buy what we produce and without them we are just hanging out talking amongst ourselves.

I will not abandon my use of the word content (not yet anyway) but I will continue to remind myself of the “why” behind all the words. Will you join me?

The tragic events of April 15, 2013 at the Boston Marathon will forever be embedded in our memory. As we struggled to process the senseless tragedy, we also faced the reality of doing business in a real time world.

To keep up with the demand for content generation, many businesses use scheduling services. In normal times, these tools allow us to maximize productivity and efficiently use our resources. However, the afternoon of April 15 was not normal and “business as usual” status updates on social media networks were quickly called out by fans and followers.

Communication failures were in abundance as automated posts, tweets, newsletters and updates quickly became ill-timed and insensitive. While fans and followers knew that the updates were pre-scheduled, they held little tolerance for not taking action to stop them.

While many business owners have crisis communication plans in place, few have a policy for handling communications when the crisis is external to their business. Whether you have a team of one or 100, a documented policy can help you avoid social media backlash when events beyond your control interrupt regularly scheduled programming. Below are 7 tips that can help you protect your brand during and after a crisis.

Know where and how your content is published. This may seem obvious but today we may employ a bevy of content management services. In a crisis we may overlook things that are on autopilot such as services like paper.li or automatic feed services such as Twitterfeed. Having a checklist will help you or a designated representative quickly take action when needed.
Stay in touch. In order to respond to a crisis you have to know that it is happening. Set up alerts on your mobile devices or email services so that you are in the loop in the event of breaking news. This can be as simple as allowing push notifications from a news app or subscribing to breaking news alerts from a media channel.Have a plan. Whether you run a solo business or large enterprise, it is important to have a documented policy for handling communications during and post-crisis. Solo and small businesses can tap virtual admins or outsourced vendors to help manage the process.

Evaluate your services. In search of that one service that does it all, many of us are guilty of using multiple services to accomplish our goals. I personally use multiple services to distribute social communications. I balance programmed messages with real time sharing. When you need to bulk pause programming however, simplicity can make you rethink your strategy. For example, bufferapp made it easy to simply pause an entire day with one click, while other services required editing individual messages one by one. Review the services you use with an eye on not only how they work day to day but how they will serve you in the event of a crisis.
Take a pause. During a crisis, interrupt your regular programming. Pause automated posts, updates and e-communications. You do not want to risk the backlash of your audience during a time when emotions and awareness are running high. It is far better to adjust your scheduling and assess when it is appropriate to resume normal communications.

Acknowledge. When a major event happens like the Boston Marathon bombing, a simple acknowledgement shows that you are human. If you continue to participate in the conversation surrounding the tragedy, be careful to offer relevant information. For example, if you are a child psychologist it would be appropriate and helpful to share information on how to talk to your children about the tragedy. Remember, however, that it is not the time to be self-promotional, offer help if you can and if not don’t be afraid to acknowledge the tragedy and go dark.

Do a post-crisis review. Before resuming your normal communication review your message and language carefully. A tragedy has a way of changing the way we receive certain words and phrases. Make sure that your messaging aligns with the new reality. In the hours and even days following a crisis, monitor your audience. Have they resumed normal communications? Your audience will tell you when it is okay to go back to business as usual.

Bonus Tip: There is never an appropriate time for an off topic, irrelevant or plain insensitive pitch or communication. Resist the urge to use tragedy to pimp your irrelevant messaging.

Do you have any tips to add to the list? Feel free to share them in the comments!